A delicacy long-prized in other areas of the globe, it’s now popping up on more and more menus in New York City, in everything from sandwiches to pizza.

The prized part of the spiny creatures are the gonads, called uni in Japan, which are usually eaten raw or lightly cooked in dishes. They’re yellowish in color and have a rich buttery texture and briny, floral taste.

And now is the perfect time to enjoy uni.

“The sea urchins spawn in late summer and early fall, so the flavor can be a bit off,” says Adam Geringer-Dunn, the co-owner and chef of Greenpoint Fish & Lobster, of the uni he sources from Massachusetts. “In the winter, they tend to be plumper and better.”

Ken Oringer, who owns Toro in Chelsea, says that when he opened Coppa in Boston five years ago, it was difficult to get customers to try a pasta carbonara with uni. Now, it’s the restaurant’s top-selling dish.

Bucatini with smoked uni and spicy breadcrumbs from All’onda.

(All’onda)

“Times have changed a lot,” Oringer says. “People realized the quality of uni they are getting from Maine and California is phenomenal. They probably had bad uni experiences back in the day, but now the quality is amazing. It’s very mild and very sweet.”

Greenpoint Fish & Lobster sells live uni in its fish market as well as freshly prepared in the restaurant. Geringer-Dunn and his staff give customers quick tutorials on how to prep the pods at home.

“It’s the lure of the exotic,” says Geringer-Dunn. “We’ve gotten so away from seeing food in the original form, that it’s appealing to adventurous home cooks to experience eating something out of its shell.”

Customers are also excited they can take it home for $3 per sea urchin. Most experience uni at high-end sushi bars, but it’s getting easier for restaurants like Greenpoint Fish & Lobster to source the pods live.

Here’s where to get uni around the city, in dishes from pasta to panini.

Miyazaki Beef Topped with Uni at Saikai on Greenwich Ave. in Manhattan

(Michael Graae/New York Daily News)

Uni and Bay Scallops au Gratin being prepared at Saikai on Greenwich Ave.

(Michael Graae/New York Daily News)

Uni in its shell at Saikai on Greenwich Ave. in Manhattan

This combination seafood market and eat-in dining room sells live sea urchin sustainably sourced from Massachusetts. You can order it freshly prepared in the dining room ($7) or buy the live urchins and have staff show you how to prepare them at home ($3 each).

To pick a good sea urchin at a market, Geringer-Dunn recommends lifting them — fresh urchin will be heavy with liquid inside. Also examine the outside; if they’ve been handled well, the spines won’t be broken and damaged.

For prepping, you’ll need gloves and a strong pair of scissors to enter the urchin through the mouth then cut an opening in the top to create a bowl out of the shell. Inside, you’ll find five yellow-orange edible lobes. Rinse them off, and serve them inside the shell.

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Uni panini

(Toro, 85 10th Ave., Chelsea; toronyc.com)

Chef Oringer is such a fan of sea urchin that he named one of his restaurants Uni in Boston. At Toro, the New York outpost of his and chef Jamie Bissonnette’s Boston tapas restaurant, the ingredient makes an appearance on the menu in the Bocadillo de Erizos ($13), a grilled panini-style sandwich with miso butter and mustard seeds.

Adam Geringer-Dunn, co-owner and chef of Greenpoint Fish & Lobster Company, cuts a live sea urchin, or uni, to be served raw.

(Andrew Lamberson/for New York Daily News)

“Lemon and butter go perfectly with sea urchin,” Oringer says. “In Europe, that’s what they serve it with. The pickled mustard seeds give it some tang, and there are some chives for an herbaceous onion note. It’s gooey and delicious and just warmed on the inside, and crunchy and buttery on the outside of the sandwich.”

At this Vietnamese spot in Queens, a reoccurring special — when the restaurant gets good sea urchin in — is the uni fried rice ($33). Chef Jimmy Tu makes a curry fried rice with large chunks of fresh crab, pineapple, cashews, tomatoes, mushrooms, Thai basil and dried shrimp, and at the end gently blends in the uni so it doesn’t overcook.

The raw meat of a sea urchin (uni) is served on the half shell on a bed of ice at Greenpoint Fish & Lobster Company.

(Andrew Lamberson/for New York Daily News)

“The uni has a richness that really complements the fresh crab and pineapple,” Tu says.

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Urchin pizza

(Prova, 184 8th Ave., Chelsea; provanyc.com)

At this new pizza spot, partner Maurizio de Rosa — who’s also behind Sushi Nakazawa in the West Village — uses his seafood connections to source high quality uni for the Urcina Pizza ($29) created by chef Pasquale Cozzolino.

Since the pizzas are cooked in an extremely hot wood-burning oven for about 90 seconds, Cozzolino first tops the pizza dough with crushed ice before putting on pecorino cheese and putting it in the oven. This presses down the center of the dough the same way tomato sauce would. And when it comes out of the oven and is ready to be topped with uni pieces, a squid ink, tomato sauce and caper leaves, the surface is hydrated — and not so hot that it scorches the delicate toppings.

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Uni tasting menu

(Saikai, 24 Greenwich Ave., West Village; saikainyc.com)

This upscale izakaya always has a few uni dishes on the menu, but for January, it’s hosting a special six-course sea urchin tasting menu ($70 with wine pairings, palate cleanser and ice cream). Chefs Xaio Lin and Wing Cheng — who both spent years working at Masa in the Time Warner Center — collaborated on the menu, which features dishes like jumbo shrimp with uni sauce; uni and bay scallops au gratin; and Miyazaki Wagyu beef topped with uni. But the visual show stopper is the miso-smoked uni sashimi, served in a glass vessel with a lid that the diner removes to release the fragrant smoke.

Bocadillo de Erizos, a grilled panini-type sandwich, from Toro on 10th Ave. in Chelsea.

(Toro/NOAH FECKS)

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Uni pasta

(All’onda, 22 E. 13th St., Greenwich Village; allondanyc.com)

Bucatini ($32) — a play on an American carbonara pasta, which is made with smoky bacon — has become the signature dish at this Japanese-influenced Venetian restaurant. In chef Chris Jaeckle’s creation, he cold smokes uni before adding it to this egg-based sauce.

“Egg on egg, like caviar and sea urchin or caviar and eggs, is a classic combination in French, Italian and Japanese cooking,” Jaeckle says the dish, which he estimates the spot sells 25 to 40 of every day. “When people told me that they hated sea urchin but loved this dish, or that they’d try uni someplace else now, I realized I had something on my hands that was special.”